John Beal (composer)

In December 2017 John Beal began working with AIVA and NVIDIA. and in February 2018, John Beal became the conductor on the Deadmau5 studio album "where's the drop?" and its subsequent concerts beginning in March 2018 with deadmau5 and a large symphony orchestra.

John Beal was born in Santa Monica, California, raised in La Cañada Flintridge, California, and graduated from John Muir High School (Pasadena, California), where he was honored for having written many of the drum cadences for the school's internationally renowned Drum Corps, many of which are still used more than 50 years after his graduation. He was named to their Hall of Fame in 2008. He attended San Diego State University and, after being decorated for heroism and bravery in combat with the United States Marine Corps, he attended UCLA. He studied percussion with William Kraft and Bernie Mattinson, and drums with Irv Cotler (drummer for Frank Sinatra), percussion with Ethnomusicologist Craig Woodson, composition with Harry Partch scholar Danlee Mitchell, synthesizers with Clark Spangler, and film scoring with Dominic Frontiere, George Duning, Buddy Baker, Fred Werner, Eddy Lawrence Manson and Earle Hagen. In his early film career, and like many of the young composers of the day, he ghost wrote the scores for numerous major motion pictures and hit television shows and orchestrated and supervised the recording sessions for many others.

Some of the well-known film trailers (for which John Beal wrote trailer music between 1977 and 2007) cover a wide range of styles for films including Titanic, We Were Soldiers, The Last Samurai, Finding Neverland, Star Wars, Aladdin, The Matrix, Mean Girls, Planet of the Apes, Batman Beyond, Alaska, Being John Malkovich, Black Beauty, Black Hawk Down, Black Rain, The Bodyguard, Braveheart, Casualties of War, Chaplin, Clear and Present Danger, Conspiracy Theory, Cruising, Dead Again, Donnie Brasco, Fallen, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, First Blood, Flight of the Intruder, Ghost, Hamlet, Heathers, The Hunt for Red October, JFK, The Mask, The Mask of Zorro, Medicine Man, Miracle on 34th Street, Mr. Mom, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Nothing in Common, Patriot Games, Quiz Show, Regarding Henry, Rising Sun, The Santa Clause, The Scarlet Letter, Steel Magnolias, The Toy, True Lies, Volcano, When a Man Loves a Woman, Working Girl, Payback, Tea with Mussolini, Police Academy, Indecent Proposal, Encino Man, Anaconda, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Nine to Five, Revenge, Bicentennial Man and Eraser.

Beginning in the late 1970s, he composed original music for numerous hit television series, including Vegas with Robert Urich, Eight Is Enough with Dick Van Patten and Betty Buckley, Happy Days with Ron Howard and Henry Winkler, Laverne & Shirley with Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams, Goodtime Girls with Annie Potts and Georgia Engel, Legmen with Bruce Greenwood and John Terlesky, and Chicago Story with Dennis Franz and Craig T. Nelson. His feature films included Zero to Sixty (1978) starring Darren McGavin and Joan Collins, The Funhouse (1981) from director Tobe Hooper, Terror in the Aisles (1984) starring Donald Pleasence and Nancy Allen, and Killer Party (1986) starring Sherry Willis-Burch.

Beal served in the United States Marine Corps and was trained as a specialist in Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare (Weapons of Mass Destruction). Sergeant Beal fought in Vietnam as a door gunner on a Huey gunship, earning his Marine Corps Combat Air Crew Wings and fighting in more than 200 combat missions and 24 major counter-insurgency operations against the North Vietnamese Army in Khe Sanh, Con Thien, Lao Bảo, Dong Ha and the A Shau Valley. He received the Combat Action Ribbon along with 8 Air Medals for bravery and was awarded a Single Mission Air Medal with Bronze Star for heroism during the rescue of a severely wounded Marine reconnaissance team near Hamburger Hill in the A Shau Valley on April 11, 1969. According to the citation for the award, after a serious firefight with an overwhelming force near Lao Bảo earlier in the day, Beal's crew refueled and came upon the trapped recon team. Surrounded by enemy fire, the Marines were struggling to drag their wounded up the extremely steep and muddy mountain to an accessible area, but were taking fire from all sides and nearly out of strength. While engaging the enemy, a rocket warhead crashed through the windscreen, hitting the pilot and crew chief. Without hesitation, the team trapped the as yet unexploded ordnance in the cabin and kept firing. The citation continues that due to his "unwavering tenacity in the face of withering enemy fire," all five Marines were saved. Additionally, Beal was awarded a Navy Achievement Medal with Combat V for Valor for his service to Vietnamese refugees near the DMZ who had fled mass genocide by the North Vietnamese Army in the North in recognition of his dedication in helping to build schools, provide medical care and protect the civilians, and the Vietnam Gallantry Cross and Vietnam Civil Actions Medal from the government of the Republic of Vietnam. Other medals include the Navy and Marine Corps Presidential Unit Citation, Navy Unit Commendation, Meritorious Unit Commendation, Vietnam Service Medal and RVN Vietnam Service Medal.